Pastor’s 2017 Epiphany Message

Greetings during this amazing Time after Epiphany,

This year we have the longest Epiphany season possible with eight Sundays. Ash Wednesday which begins Lent isn’t until March 1.

The time after Epiphany, January 6, marking the visit of the Magi to the Christ Child, is sometimes called the “bread and butter” Christianity. It is the basis of our faith—the divinity of our Lord with his baptism, his first miracle with the turning of water to wine at the wedding of Cana, his teachings in his Sermon on the Mount and ending with Transfiguration. It is a time when our Lord is coming to us and making all things new.

Our Lord Jesus in our Sunday readings is teaching us the way of true discipleship. In the themes of light they point us toward the hope and love only our Lord gives. He instructs us to cast out the darkness of hatred, of selfishness and of fear. The heart of his teaching in Sermon on the Mount is to love all others as we love ourselves. Jesus knows that this is not easy. He knows that we hear it, we read it and we repeat it. But do we truly understand what it involves?

During this season let us all meditate on what it means to love others—especially those different from ourselves. It is so much easier to love someone who looks like us, talks like us and agrees with us. But those others? Jesus even loved the tax collectors and the Roman soldiers—even those who crucified him!

Jesus said, “I am the light of the world.” So let us bear our Lord’s light of love for all into this world. May God bless you.

Pastor Jeanne